BIO

Mezzo-Soprano | Voice Teacher | Stage Director

In August of 2012, Dr. Courtney Crouse joined the faculty of the prestigious Wanda L. Bass School of Music at Oklahoma City University. In 2011 she was a Visiting Lecturer at the University of Nevada directing Madama Butterfly and teaching opera workshop and voice. She graduated with a Doctorate in Music in December 2013 from the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music. Along with teaching voice at Oklahoma City University, she maintains a private voice studio for her professional singers, and she is an active performer in the Oklahoma City area singing jazz, classical and musical theater repertoire. She performs with the Oklahoma City Jazz Orchestra, is a founding member of TACTUS, an 8 person professional vocal ensemble in OKC and with the Lyric Theatre of Oklahoma City. She is also a founding member of The City Cabaret. http://www.thecitycabaretokc.com/

Courtney is a member of the Classical Guitar Duo: Crouse Denman. They perform classical guitar and vocal music all over the United States and Spain and are planning a European tour for the summer of 2018. They are recording a CD to be released in 2018.

Courtney studied with Metropolitan Opera star, Carol Vaness and the vocal pedagogue, Paul Kiesgan. Prior to moving to Oklahoma City, Dr. Crouse was an active singer in New York City where she was a featured soloist with The New York Virtuoso Singers under the direction of Harold Rosenbaum, became a charter member of The Coterie, a New York ensemble dedicated to the development and performance of new opera, and was a featured soloist in concerts in Canada with L’Harmonie des Saisons under the direction of Baroque Specialist, Eric Milnes.

During her tenure at Indiana University Dr. Crouse taught voice as an associate instructor and performed in several opera premieres. She sang the role of Victoria Corelli, a morphine addicted mother, in the collegiate premiere of Bolcom’s A Wedding as well as Mrs. Gibbs in the world premiere of Ned Rorem’s Our Town. During her time at IU, Dr. Crouse also portrayed Columbina in Busoni’s opera Arlecchino, Josephine in H.M.S. Pinafore, and the Second Lady in The Magic Flute. Other roles include Susanna in Le nozze di Figaro with Opera Ischia in Italy, Musetta in La Bohème and the title role of Carlisle Floyd’s Susannah. She was also a young artist with Fort Worth Opera. Dr. Crouse, a versatile performer, is noted for being an accomplished actress as well as singer. At Heritage Repertory Theater she performed Sharon Graham in the Tony Award Winning play Master Class. In addition, Dr. Crouse has also performed such musical theater roles as Amalia in She Loves Me, Anna Held in Tintypes, Anne Egerman in A Little Night Music, Connie Miller in 1940s Radio Hour, and the Step-Mother in Into the Woods. She was also in the critically acclaimed performance of Bernstein’s Mass as the Blues Singer at the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music, and she was the featured soloist with the Nate Sutton Jazz Quintet.

Dr. Crouse attended Indiana University for both her Master’s and Doctoral degrees where her focus was Vocal Performance, Stage Direction of Opera and Music History. There she studied under the tutelage of internationally acclaimed director Vincent Liotta. Ms. Crouse was assistant director to Mr. Liotta for The Mikado at the IU Opera Theater. She was also music director for A Chorus Line and Falsettos for the Indiana University Theater Department, led graduate-level workshops in opera, was chosen to direct scene programs and created an “Acting for Singers” workshop for graduate students. It was at this time that she first felt the calling to help young singers develop solid acting skills to accompany sound vocal techniques. Dr. Crouse’s directing experience stretches from the light operettas of Gilbert and Sullivan to more recently the heavy dramatic works of Puccini’s Madama Butterfly where Brian Alvarez of Las Vegas Arts and Culture said, ”The performance could not have been more perfect and this rendition left me with a smile and of course a few tears trickling down my face.”

Press Reviews

“Madama Butterfly could not have been more perfect, and this rendition left me with a smile and of course a few tears trickling down my face.”

Brian Paco Alverez, las Vegas Arts and Culture

“…there are also moments of great lyrical beauty in A Wedding. I was especially moved by the sadly drug addicted mother of the groom, Courtney Crouse’s aria of her first love for the groom’s father, an Italian waiter.”

“A noteworthy performance was given by Courtney Crouse as Josephine Corcoran, the heroine, whose voice easily reached the highest notes in the opera and whose changes in mood were extremely convincing.” ~H.M.S. Pinafore